The Venezuelan part of the CASA/UNO GPS project

During the first Central and South America GPS Campaign (CASA/UNO) in January/February 1988, five stations were occupied along the Bocono Fault in Western Venezuela. The stations form a quadrangle of about 100 km to 180 km lateral length and are placed nearly parallel on both sides of the fault in order to monitor compressive as well as strike-slip motions. One central Station is situated at the Merida Astrophysical Observatory close to the fault in the centre of the Venezuelan Andes. Evaluation of three weeks of observation data provides three-dimensional station coordinates in a regional reference system with a (formal) precision of a few millimeters. This result is seen as a good basis for monitoring crustal deformations in future repetition compaigns. -Authors